Saturday, 3 September 2016

An Apterite for well over 7 years and a Co-event veteran, Matt Hamer is one of the most enduring, endearing and enigmatic figures on the site. Read on to read what he has to say on Countdown, concerts and coupledom (and play his Easter Egg game!)...

You
joined Apterous back in 2009 - over 7 years ago. How has it changed in that
time?

I’ve always been a Scrabble® player first
and foremost – Countdown is my second wordy hobby, really. Whilst I was a
regular viewer of Countdown in the ’80s, it was the appointment of Jeff
Stelling as host which renewed my interest in watching. The lure of Apterous
was then too strong: even in its early days, it looked great, and it was rammed
with innovative features and challenges – it became so much more fun to play than
ISC (Internet Scrabble Club).

As the years have passed since then,
Charlie has continued to develop and add features to Apterous. But alongside
these technical enhancements are the changes in how Apterites themselves have
used the website creatively. It perhaps began when players found new meta-games:
pencil-mining, achievement collecting, and high-score hunting. It’s continued
with Apterites now using infrastructure that Charlie has put in place, to lead
all sorts of diverse initiatives for the benefit and enjoyment of others: dictionary
updates, elaborate tournaments, The Mole, quizzes, to name a few.

In parallel with this increased sense of
community, the in-person Countdown scene has grown tremendously, with Apterites
supporting online friends during TV recordings, and a flourishing Co-event
(unofficial in-person tournament) calendar. Apterites should be proud of their
contributions to both the online and in-person games.

What
have your favourite Apterous moments been?

Online, my favourite moments have
encompassed gameplay (maxing an Aegilops Letters Attack after 864 attempts; and
a Stepdown tournament which proved a thriller of a climax to Marcus’ 2012
Aptolympics); as well as the characters who have made Aptochat a hugely
entertaining forum to frequent (anyone have time for a quick top 5?).

In person, I’ve attended 25 Co-events, and
these provided me with a Countdown moment I’ll keep forever: Michael Wallace
presenting me with a trophy at Co:Lon 2011. As far as English language Countdown
play is concerned, I’ve now retired and returned to Scrabble, but I’m delighted
by the success of FOCAL, and I’ll continue to attend one event a year. Ben,
I’ll see you in Lincoln for my “hands glued to head” pose!

Is
there any particular reason why you chose Spongebob Squarepants as your avatar?

Genuinely, little thought went into it. I
like SpongeBob, although I could equally have chosen one of many animated
characters. Ironically, for an Apterite represented by a character who lives in
a pineapple under the sea, I react adversely to the enzyme BROMELAIN found in
pineapples. (A valid 9 in CSW, but not yet in ODO, if anyone's wondering.)

You’re
one of the most prolific foreign language players. What are your favourite
languages, and why?

Other than English, the only language I can
hold a proper conversation in is Dutch, although I can understand German and
French reasonably well. Dutch has a wonderful flexibility in its sentence
structure, and Dutch speakers enthusiastically adopt loanwords and new idioms
in a natural way. It gives the language a wonderful capacity to convey
different nuances of meaning. I sometimes wish native UK English speakers were less
resistant to evolution of their language – I wish they wouldn’t condemn
contemporary words or spellings like LOSINGEST, SRSLY, MINISCULE.

But
which language is the most fun to play on apterous?

I concentrate on three or four Apterous
languages, but I’m always impressed by the Apterites with a command of
seemingly all of them. Miriam, Phyl, Catriona, Adam G, and others, are
particularly talented in this regard.

Dutch and German are my favourite languages
to play on Apterous, because of the quirks of the Apterous lexicons. In
particular, the Dutch lexicon, which was a huge word list scraped from various
sources, and was really meant for a spellchecker, includes all sorts of bizarre
entries (NEWAGECD, SEXCAM, PARADISEBYTHEDASHBOARDLIGHT). I quite enjoy the
challenge of spotting these in amongst more conventional words.

You’re
also one of the most consistent players of the Daily Duel on the site. Back in
the day, you were pretty vocal in Aptochat about messing up rounds - are you
more relaxed about playing the game now, or just quieter when you’re unhappy
with your performance?

The monthly Duel competition rewards a
combination of playing conservatively every day (not risking words or fudging
numbers), and good knowledge of the regular high-scoring words in less popular
variants (Unlimited, Aegilops and Omelette). As most of Apterous’s very top
players either don’t play every Duel, or have never bothered with the more off
the wall variants or languages, it leaves the minor placings open to lesser Apterites.

And yes, I had a history of dealing with my
frustrations about bad luck by venting them in aptochat. There came a point
though when I realised that this was rather antisocial. Around the same time, my
outlook on life became a little more relaxed, so nowadays any annoyance at
muffing a Duel subsides almost straight away. Apologies to anyone who I used to
offend with my outbursts.

As
half of one of the community’s most lovable couples, what romantic advice do
‘Hayfield’ have for Apterous’s budding young Romeos and Juliets?

Ha, allowing me to dispense romantic advice
might be dangerous, but I’d say meeting people with common interests is a good
bet! If you happen to have a love of words and arithmetic puzzles, then with
aptochat online, plus FOCAL’s ever-growing circuit of in-person events, you
have more opportunities than ever of meeting like-minded individuals. Some of
these, you might also have the hots for, and if the number of Countdown-related
couples is an indicator, then some of these might well like you back.

You’ve
lived in several different countries. Tell us some stories from your time
abroad!

I loved the vibrant music scene in the
Netherlands; in the summers, I would spend weekends watching bands in fields,
and nights DJing at student parties. I got to chat with Moby, stomped on the
foot of a popular showbiz personality, and appeared on TV dancing to Eagle-Eye
Cherry.

Early nights and clean living were more my
thing by the time I moved to Texas. I ran my first half-marathon in San Antonio
(being careful not to urinate on the Alamo, like Ozzy Osbourne). I spent an
evening at a small-town rodeo and country dance, although I’m not quite sure
how I got to be there. I remember mostly being terrified of having to dance
with the local Texan girls. Of course, they were just being friendly by
chatting to the visiting guy with the English accent; I was trying desperately
to hide that I had no clue how to two-step.

Anyone
who’s Facebook friends with you will be aware of your astonishing commitment to
going to gigs. What are your best gigs of all time, and which artist would you
most like to see live?

Music has been profoundly important for
most of my life, and I love most the experience of hearing, and watching, music
being played live. Over twenty years after the first live show I saw, I’ve now
seen nearly a thousand. Favourites have included that very first show – the now
greatly missed songwriter and performer Kirsty MacColl – and a trip to
California to see the re-activated pop/punk legends the Go-Go’s. A more
unusual, but equally memorable gig, was an Idlewild show where singer Roddy
Woomble was taken ill shortly before showtime. Rather than cancel the show, the
remainder of the band played a free, full set, inviting a fan on stage to sing
each song. It was wonderful to watch those 20 or so music-lovers feeling
invincible as they lived out their rock fantasies that night.

With many of my favourite bands re-forming
in recent years, there are few remaining acts on my wish list of those I still
haven’t seen. I’d love Voice Of The Beehive to re-form, and I hope that recently
reactivated Scottish mid-’90s indie-poppers The Secret Goldfish will play once
again. Of acts who are better known, I somehow never got to see the fabulous Pulp.
(You’re missing out! – Ed)

In
your opinion, what was the best year for music?

Music and me are inextricably linked, and I
do associate years with their music.

Amid the economic and political depression,
the short period from 1977 was an incredibly creative time for music. The DIY
rebellion of punk rock, followed by the new electronic sounds of the first
homebuild synthesisers, yielded bands who I still love today – the Go-Go’s,
Buzzcocks, the Human League, OMD among the bigger names.

It’s difficult to narrow that period of punk
and new wave to a defining single year, so if I were pushed, I might also pick 1996.
In the wake of the Britpop explosion, major labels were throwing cash at guitar
acts, and the smaller independents were blossoming. Ash, Slingbacks, Pullover,
Kenickie, Helen Love, Spacemaid… some of these bands fizzled out after only a
few singles, some are still active today, but all of them hold wonderful
memories for me.

Final
question - if you were to host a dinner party, what would your menu be?

It depends whether I have to prepare the
food – my repertoire of “things I can cook that are good enough to serve to
other people” is limited. There are however two dinner parties I’ve always
wanted to organise, but have yet to do so. One would be based on what was hilariously
considered the height of dinner party style in the late ’70s, so prawn cocktail
in limp lettuce for starter, something stodgy and beefy for main, and Viennetta
or chocolate fondue for dessert, all washed down with Liebfraumilch. It would
also be – of its time – lovingly un-PC (the ladies would all drink sherry,
those cranky vegetarians would be disdainfully served nut roast). And the other
idea? Well, as soon as I can come up with a full menu of dishes which both
sound rude, and look rude... you can bring the cock soup.

Matt's Postscript

For the pop music fans, I’ve concealed an
Easter egg (or more specifically, 10 Easter eggs) into my replies. Can you
uncover the well-known act who inspired me?